Governments are overwhelmed balancing consumer expectations, aging workforce, regulations, rapid technology change and fiscal deficits. This blog gathers a community of SMEs who discuss trends and outline how public sector organizations can leverage relevant best practices to drive their software-led transformation and build the future of technology – today!

Enroll UX 2014 - Enrollment made easy - Part 1

Dr. Mark Smith, President and CEO of California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) mentioned last month- "We live in a digital society. Access to health coverage should be as straightforward as the other transactions people have become accustomed to, whether it's online banking or making travel arrangement"

Unfortunately, US healthcare is not there yet. Case in point - enrollment for health insurance - it was and partially remains, a paper based activity in many states. With additional 40 million+ applicants expected to enroll soon owing to the affordable care act, it needs to be transformed quickly.

Challenges in the current enrollment process

Process is cumbersome, complicated and partially electronic

Dependency on manual interventions makes the Process both time and money consuming

Online application lacks intuitiveness and easy usability

Process is not scalable and robust to handle 40 million+ estimated applicants

Health insurance exchange may just be the catalyst for this transformation. An exchange is required to be flexible, customizable, and an interactive IT enabled platform that allows consumers to get evaluated for eligibility and purchase appropriate health insurance based on their residency, employment, household size and income status etc.It needs to be simple, consumer friendly and easily accessible to provide rich user experience during enrollment.

CMS has emphasized on improved access of high quality health insurance coverage for individuals and families through collaborative partnerships. Implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) through Health Insurance Exchanges is a step to enable self-service online enrollment processes. Enrollment processes have evolved in time, which are currently managed in multiple electronic and non-electronic formats. Anticipating the challenge of more than 40 million people seeking health insurance coverage on exchange, enrollment process needs to be more robust and integrated with current technology and systems.

Leaders in health philanthropy, leading design firm (IDEO) and CHF have come up with Enroll UX-2014 as a proposed answer to manage this huge number of enrollments. Enroll UX-2014 is introduced as a digital toolkit of human-centered design standards that will enable citizens to manage their online enrollment into health insurance on an exchange. Considering that the Enroll UX-2014 is built to support enrollment across commercial and state requirements, applicability of these standards in Health Insurance exchange requirements seems to be very appropriate. Enroll UX 2014 has emerged as a simple, consumer friendly and cost effective solution to process enrollments on exchange. With right amount of effort, funding and resources, this project, I believe, will provide the best value to all the stakeholders and in part 2 of this blog, I will outline its value proposition to different entities.